


Couples Therapy

by LadyGlinda



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Bickering, Crack Treated Seriously, Fluff, M/M, POV Original Female Character, Possessive Mycroft, Post-Episode: s04e03 The Final Problem, Sherlock is a Brat, Sibling Incest, Therapy, holmescest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 12:47:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21253628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyGlinda/pseuds/LadyGlinda
Summary: Carrie Loman, therapist for twenty years, meets two new clients. The session turns out to be a tad… special.





	Couples Therapy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Snoozydog](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snoozydog/gifts), [SlytherinsDragon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SlytherinsDragon/gifts).

> Sparked by a comment by Snoozydog. Thank you for letting me write this idea! :)

“Good evening, please come in, I’m Doctor Carrie Loman.” The therapist smiled at her newest clients and made an inviting gesture into her office. She kept it very neat and it was bright, with two large windows, showing the beautiful garden behind her house.

The younger man, tall, slim but with broad shoulders and a mop of raven-black curls, stepped in first, reluctantly shaking her offered hand and scrutinising her. He was wearing an expensive black coat and had a very attractive and very unique face with high cheekbones and eyes in the colour of shiny emeralds. Carrie thought his face looked slightly familiar.

The other man, even taller and also slim but looking less athletic, sighed. “It’s not her. I just showed you the video feed. Not even she can be at two places at the same time.” There was a resignation to his tone but also more patience than his words would have suggested. He had pale-blue eyes and a long, interesting looking nose. His pale complexion spoke of a man who didn’t spend much time outside.

“Please. Video feeds can be manipulated.”

“They can but they are, in fact, not.” The older man with the thinning black hair shook Carrie’s hand. “Thank you for meeting us at this late hour and accepting our probably unusual conditions.”

“Please, take your coats off and have a seat. Oh, give me this.” Carrie smiled and reached out for the long, black umbrella. It hadn’t rained all week and she wondered why he had brought it.

“No, I’m keeping this with me.”

The curly haired man sighed. “Don’t even try to take this thing away from him. If he could, he would even take it to bed…” He looked as if he wanted to add something, probably something rather naughty, but the dark look he received made him refrain from it, and he sighed again.

They all sat down; the two men in the visitor’s chairs, Carrie behind her desk. Some therapists didn’t want to have a barrier between themselves and their clients, but Carrie preferred drawing a visible line in order to make the clients concentrate on each other. She was not part of their problems so she had to keep a distance.

“I’m Myc and this is my… partner Lock,” the older man introduced them.

They had insisted on telling her only their first names. They would pay cash after each session - usually there were ten of them – and the older man, which whom she had spoken on the phone, had been very persistent of keeping these sessions completely confidential. Carrie had assured him that she always did but she’d had to more or less swear it and she’d had to sign a form that had been brought to her by an attractive brunette in an expensive costume.

She had noticed the pause between his words and wondered if this was already a sign of this problematic relationship – defining what the other man was to him. But she didn’t like to jump to quick conclusions. “I’m pleased to meet you and I’m glad you trust me with giving you advice.”

Lock snorted. “Trust. He doesn’t even know what this word means...”

Myc grimaced. “Can you please wait with insulting me?”

“Well,” Carrie said, “perhaps I should tell you a few things about myself to...”

“Never mind,” Lock interrupted her. “He knows already more about you than you do yourself; otherwise we wouldn’t be here. And he told me all about you and I remember everything, and so does he; we have eidetic memories.”

“Which might be part of the problem...” Myc mumbled.

Carrie stared at him. Realisation daunted on her that these two might be the most unusual clients she had ever had in the twenty years she had been counselling couples, the names and the payment aside. “Um...”

“Don’t worry about that,” Lock said, crossing his long legs. “He always does that. You can’t hide anything from him. Or from me, actually. I don’t use to spy on people though; I rather deduce everything about them by watching them or talking to them.”

“Sh-… Lock, could you just please…?”

“What, shut up? Fine. Do the talking. We both know you love to hear your own voice…”

Carrie had the strong feeling ten sessions might not quite be sufficient for those two…

“We didn’t… It was a tough decision to even come here,” Myc said, his right hand balled into a fist.

“Yeah. Wasn’t quite voluntary...” Lock threw in as if he hadn’t just said he wanted to leave the talking to his partner.

Myc nodded, not looking surprised in the least about this. “Well, someone suggested we should talk to someone… outside of our usual space.”

“My landlady urged us to go. With a frying pan...”

Myc gave him a fierce glare. “That was very… Anyway… We did see her point in the end. So… here we are...” He didn’t look as if he was completely convinced of the reasonability of this decision.

“Right,” Carrie said, also realising that taking control in this conversation would not be that easy. “Why don’t you tell me a bit about your relationship then? When did you get together?”

“About a year ago. After some… challenging events.”

“Would you like to elaborate?” Carrie encouraged him. Whatever they could tell her about the foundations of their partnership would help her giving advice.

It was Lock who gave the answer. “Someone told me to kill either him or someone else and I chose to point the gun at my own head.”

“That was just a tremendously stupid thing to do!” Myc flared, and clearly not for the first time.

“Right! If I had done what you wanted, I wouldn’t have to sit here!”

“Or you would sit here with John...”

“Please! As if I’d ever wanted anything from him! He has a girlfriend now, and he was married, in case you forgot.”

“I didn’t but...” Myc broke off. “This is not important now, sorry, Doctor Loman.”

“Oh, call me Carrie, please.” Usually she didn’t offer this so soon but since she had to address them with their first names, true ones or not, it felt strange to have them call her ‘Doctor’. And what sort of a story was this? Who were these men? How had they got in such a situation? But she wouldn’t ask for details, rather sure she wouldn’t get them anyway.

Myc nodded in agreement. “We met afterwards and got closer than we had been for a long time and then… it developed into something else.”

“It was hot,” Lock mumbled. “Still is.” He smiled at his partner and Myc smiled back, and for a moment genuine affection passed between them.

They seemed to have a lot of issues but there was obviously a foundation of deep love, which made Carrie hopeful that they could sort out their difficulties in the end. But it would certainly require some work.

“So you knew each other before.”

Lock chuckled. “You could say that...”

“We did but we were… not lovers.”

“I’m sure she figured out that much...” Lock rolled his eyes in a rather bratty way.

“You were friends, then? For how long?” Carrie asked.

“Pretty long,” Myc said quickly. “Friends though...”

“Not really, no. Archenemies would fit better.”

“Only in your imagination!” Myc hissed. “I always wanted the best for you!”

“You wanted to control me! And you still want that! You suffocate me with your mother-hen-attitude and your bloody jealousy!”

“I don’t… I… You still think you have to run into every danger. You are almost forty now. Don’t you think it’s time to economize a bit?”

“And do what – sit behind a desk all day like you? We can’t all rule the world from our offices, Mycr-...”

Carrie usually asked her clients what they thought were the sore spots in their relationships. There was no need for this here. She had already discovered several of them… “So, Lock, what you think makes your partnership difficult is that Myc wants to control you?”

“Oh he does. He lives for being in control. He always knows where I go and with whom I speak. I bet he has bugs on me…”

“I do not, I told you!”

Lock snorted. “Well, I’m not convinced you’re telling the truth about this.”

Myc sighed.

Carrie cleared her throat. “And you, Myc, think that Lock is bringing yourself in danger, and you are worried about him.”

“I am. Constantly.”

Lock gave him a strange mixture of a loving smile and an exasperated look. “I can look after myself. You know that.”

“Yes. Still...”

For a moment none of them spoke. Then Carrie said, “You mentioned your landlady, Lock. So that means you are not living together?”

“God no. We would _kill _each other...”

Myc looked hurt. “You know I would live with you if that was possible. And perhaps we would get along better then.”

“What? You have to be kidding me. But actually we wouldn’t see much more of each other anyway because you work all day and in the evening you have to go to stupid parties...”

Myc made a disbelieving noise. “I have a full-time job, yes, but I hardly ever go to parties. You know I avoid them by any means and only go there if I don’t have a choice. And your cas-… your work requires being out at night often enough! And you can’t complain about me suffocating you and then say I never have time!”

Lock pouted. “It’s both true...”

Carrie would have liked to know why they couldn’t live together. She couldn’t ask right away though but there was one thing to get clear about. “You… are not married, Myc, are you?”

“What, with him? No. We can’t, we… Oh, you meant with someone else. Of course not. There has never been anyone else. At least not for me.”

“What is that supposed to mean? You and your stupid jealousy! You know I was a virgin before we got together! Which can’t be said about you, can it?!”

“You know they didn’t mean anything to me and it was long ago anyway. I was still at uni! You on the other hand…”

Lock threw his hands in the air. “Who, pray tell, do you think had me before you, huh? Janine? I told you she made all these stories up. I only used her for getting to… her boss and I never touched her and I hated it when she kissed me. Or Irene? You are aware that I’m gay, right?”

“I watched you two together, you and this… prostitute. There was something going on between you; you even betrayed the coun-… You did something very silly because of her.”

“I did, yes.” Lock sighed. “She confused me. Not sexually! But she was a real dominatrix… But in the end I gave her to you, remember?”

“It wasn’t the end though. You saved her...”

“I did, yes. Stupid John giving it away with the bloody coffin. But that I don’t like women to be beheaded, blackmailers or not, doesn’t mean I want to touch their… things.” Lock shuddered.

“She doesn’t seem to know that though…”

Lock sighed. “You know I’ve blocked her number now. That was really unfortunate...”

“What, your phone moaning in unison with you?”

“Well, I was having sex with you then, and I never had and never will with her so what are you complaining about?”

“She was important to you. Just like John and Mary...”

Lock rolled his eyes. “What, you think I fucked with them?”

Myc winced. “Watch your language. There’s a lady present!”

Lock rolled his eyes again but gave her an apologetic look that appeared slightly ironic. “Apologies...”

Carrie smiled. “No problem.” She was rather surprised they were still aware they weren’t alone… Would she be even able to give them any kind of advice? But if they sorted out their problems in front of her, it was fine with her.

“You don’t have to engage sexually with someone to...”

“...what, be in love with them? Mary and John? They were my friends. I mean John still is.”

“Yeah. Great choice of friends...”

“He apologised!”

“I should have taken him out!”

“I wouldn’t have allowed it!”

“Yes, because you forgive everything that’s being done by a Wats-… By them!”

Lock hit on his armrest. “Okay, they hurt me, both of them, but they had good reasons. And you never liked John because you don’t like me to have friends, even before we got together.”

“We’ve never been good at making friends, lit-… Sh-… Lock.”

To Carrie’s surprise, Lock giggled behind his hand. But he got serious again right away. “I know you were lonely. You never admitted it.”

“I wanted _you_...”

“Aw… I wish you had told me...”

Myc sighed. “You would have just laughed in my face had I done it before… these horrors.”

“This is not true! I harboured feelings for you!”

“But you weren’t aware of them...”

“True, but you were, and you didn’t have the courage to tell me.”

“I couldn’t. You would have just told me you don’t like fat men.”

Lock gasped. “I’d never have said this!”

“Oh, really. All those jokes about my diet.”

“I’m sorry. I never meant them.”

Myc nodded darkly. “You and John always made fun of me.”

“Ah, self-pity doesn’t suit you, Mycr-…!”

Myc glowered at him, and Carrie cleared her throat. Perhaps it was time now to intervene. What she would suggest might help. Or make it worse. Despite all her experience, she really couldn’t say with this couple…

“Fine, gentlemen. I think your issues are _[legion] _a challenge for your relationship but perhaps a little role play might be helpful.”

“Oh, we do this, you know...”

Myc chuckled. “She doesn’t mean _that_ kind of role play...”

Lock giggled and Carrie grinned behind her hand. “No, not quite. Why don’t you just pretend you are your partner and you tell the other one what you find problematic about his behaviour.”

The men looked confused for a moment but then Myc nodded. “All right. If you think that’s useful.”

“It didn’t help your marriage, did it?” Lock asked her, and Carrie blushed.

“Lock, let that be!” hissed Myc.

“Sorry.”

Carrie smiled weakly. Certainly this kind of information had not been available for Myc when he had done his research about her. So Lock could, how had he called it, deduce such things? Impressive. And unsettling…

“Okay, let me start. I'm you now.”

“You wish...”

Myc sighed.

“Fine, go ahead. You are me.”

“Good… _‘Br-’_… Dammit! _‘Myc… I don’t like to be controlled by you. I’m an adult and can look after myself. True, I recklessly run into every danger and have no regard for how that makes you feel but I’m a grown man and very smart and know what I’m doing. __And I hate your job and that it takes so much of your time__’_.”

Carrie nodded, ignoring Lock’s embarrassed glare. “That was… good. Perhaps you could try that again at some point without the accusation.”

“As if… Fine, my turn now. ‘_Lock, you are an unreasonable man who thinks he’s invincible. But you are not and I worry about you if you dare go under the radar and avoid my cameras and pretend you are a free man who doesn’t have to give account for every bloody thing he does’_.”

Carrie almost sighed in unison with Myc. She should have known this wouldn’t work. “Well… What if we try something else. Lock, tell Myc what you wish him to do to make you feel better with him. And please do think of the reasons he might have to treat you like this.”

“This is stupid...”

“Lock, please. Do what she says.”

“You mean like I have to do whatever you say?”

“Gentlemen, please.”

“Sorry...” Lock took a deep breath. “Myc, I wish you would accept me the way I am. I know I’m messy and sometimes I do very risky things and I might not always think about the consequences beforehand and I was hurt sometimes. But I do take better care of myself now because I have a reason to live, more than ever. I… I just want to be myself and you know I don’t do… some things anymore. Drugs. I know your worries root in those bad times. They are over now. You don’t need to be jealous of everybody who looks at me. They are unimportant to me. And I won’t let anyone beat me anymore. I hope we can make more time for each other. I love you.” The last words were barely a whisper.

Myc stared at him, his eyes looking like melting ice now. “Oh, dear. I do. I accept you. And I will make sure to spend more quality time with you. Probably it’s about time for me to economize a bit as well. And I know I’m too jealous sometimes. I know there is nobody else for you. I should… let you be yourself. I will try. And I hope you can see that all I do is due to my… deep love for you. I just don’t want to lose you.”

Lock’s bottom lip trembled and then they both got up simultaneously and they crashed in a fierce embrace, their lips finding each other, and Carrie couldn’t help but stare at them snogging as if there was no tomorrow.

When they parted, they were both flushed and their eyes were glistening. “Thank you, Carrie,” Myc said. “You did a great job.”

“Um… Thank you,” Carrie brought out. “I’m not sure if your problems can be solved so easily though, I would suggest you come back and do some homework in between...”

“Ah, no need for it,” Lock said, nuzzling against his partner. “We will do our homework indeed, as soon as we are in his house...”

“I didn’t mean...” Carrie broke off, knowing it to be pointless. She watched Myc taking out an envelope.

“We owe you a lot. And if we should face any more trouble, we will come back, right, Lock?”

“Yes. But I’m sure you’ve learned now that you were wrong and should behave better from now on.” Lock grinned widely.

“You’re a brat and will always be a brat,” Myc said, tenderly.

“True. But I’m _your_ brat and will always be. You’re stuck with me,” purred Lock.

“I wouldn’t want it any other way,” Myc assured him. “Thank you again, Doctor. We will find the way out by ourselves.”

And the two men left her office, but not without Lock slapping Myc’s arse and getting his nose pinched in return.

Carrie stared at the door after it had been closed for a few minutes. Then she smiled. Sometimes she loved her job.


End file.
